A frontal system is moving across the south coast bringing continued rain and windy conditions. The rain should taper off over the next couple of hours before an even stronger system will impact us tomorrow ie more rain, mountain snow & gusty winds! Whistler is looking at 15-20 cm at alpine level.

-The system affecting us today will begin to move into the interior of the province Tuesday afternoon after a wintery weekend. This system is expected to bring more snow with accumulations reaching 10-20 cm by Wednesday. Freezing levels are also expected to increase to near 1200 metres over southern sections Tuesday night and snow will switch over to rain below this elevation. Snowfall warnings are still in place for some areas of the Okanagan- Any mountain pass driving over the next 48 hours will continue to be messy- Temps will be mild until mid-week when an upper level trough will bring a cooler and more showery period to the south coast Wed-Thu. Sunshine possible on Thursday at this point! And wet snow possible Thursday as cooler temps continue

Brutal Cold Ahead for Canada?- The week ahead looks to warm-up for much of Canada...and the winter so far has been generally mild. But starting next week much of the nation could experience the coldest air yet this season

4.4 Quake Off Vancouver Island Coast- A 4.4 (4.2 via Natural Resource Canada) quake struck 200 km west of Tofino yesterday evening with reports of the shaking being felt across the island- This quake was in the Cascadia subduction zone where even though the plates are 'locked' we still experience lots of expected shaking all the time. This follows Saturday mornings 7.5 off the coast of Alaska...on the Queen Charlotte boundary, a different tectonic plate boundary than the 4.4. Aftershocks continue for both the 7.5 (as well as our 7.8 back in Oct which likely contributed to Saturday's quake). At this point the two do not seem connected..but there is still a lot we are learning about stress transference from one plate to another

Asteroid Apophis arrives this week for a close pass of Earth - This isn't the end of the world but a new beginning for research into potentially hazardous asteroids- Wednesday's pass is only really close by astronomical standards, taking place at around 14.5 million kilometres above Earth's surface. But the 2029 close pass is another matter entirely, however. - On Friday 13 April 2029, Apophis will slip past the Earth just 30,000 km above our heads - less that one-tenth the distance of the moon and closer even than the communication satellites that encircle the Earth at 36,000km.http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/across-the-universe/2013/jan/07/apophis-potentially-hazardous-asteroid-earth-wednesday